


It's about time

by ionthesparrow



Category: Hockey RPF, Olympics RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:58:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1740512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionthesparrow/pseuds/ionthesparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick Kane goes to the Olympics. Patrick Kane goes to the Olympics. Patrick Kane goes to the Olympics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ?

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this is not the story you're looking for.
> 
>  
> 
> (many thanks to empathapathique, who said, "Eh. Why not?")
> 
> [update 6/6: there is now an _amazing_ playlist to go with this story, courtesy of chuffystilton. Check it out [here](http://8tracks.com/chuffystilton/it-s-about-time).]

* * *

 

**An additional author’s note, on why this work is still here:**

Last month, Patrick Kane was accused of raping a young women. As of the writing of this note, on September 5, 2015, the investigation of these allegations is not complete, and a Grand Jury will be hearing evidence. I firmly believe, based on the statistics available, that his accuser is telling the truth. 

My thoughts and sympathies are with the victim, with her family, and friends. 

Having written this piece of fanfiction long before these allegations were made – I am now faced with the choice of what to do with it. I can delete it, orphan it, amend it to include a note or acknowledgement, or leave it alone. 

My first instinct was to leave it alone – the date of posting makes it clear this work predates the assault. I don’t think authors should be held responsible for things they can’t have foreseen. But also I believed the majority of the hockey rpf community – my community – would see this issue as I did. That while it’s painful to acknowledge that we cheered for or celebrated or projected parts of ourselves onto a man who turned out to be a rapist, that the most important victim here – the only important victim – is the woman he raped. And that creating new, fictional versions of Patrick Kane (that is, writing new stories about him) contributes to a toxic culture of rape apology, erasure, and violence against women. 

Given some of the responses I have seen following this assault from my fellow fans, I no longer believe we all share these beliefs. And thus I no longer feel comfortable leaving this work unchanged. 

I am choosing not to delete this work because I think Patrick Kane was a huge influence and much beloved in hockey rpf fandom – and that leaving works about him up is a powerful reminder that even people who are huge influences and who are much beloved can turn out to be awful people. I am choosing not to orphan this work because I, personally, can also use the reminder that the people I choose to write about can be awful people. Leaving this work up, writing this note, and choosing not to create any future fictional versions of Patrick Kane, is what felt right to me. I won’t presume to tell other authors what is right for them, although I will say this: stories have power. Narratives have power. And examining what your work contributes to is a worthwhile endeavor for everyone. 

 

* * *

 

?. 

Up above, _way_ up above, there’s a bird circling. Broad wings, primary feathers reaching out like fingers, backlit black against a blue sky. 

Patrick’s eyes water. He looks down. 

Today is Saturday, February 15 th. Today they play Russia. Today they’re going to win. Patrick stands next to his bike, fingers resting on the handlebars, and rocks, heel toe heel toe, humming under his breath. He thinks about throwing in a dance step. He thinks that if he let go of his bike, he would lift up. Float away. Today they’re going to win. 

“Come on, roomie.” Callahan emerges and knocks a hand against Patrick’s shoulder. “Let’s go to work.” He swings a leg over his bike and looks back at Patrick. Patrick grins. 

 

 

Patrick squeezes his eyes shut against the sting of sweat. With eyes closed, he can’t see anything except the daylight sliver of net behind Bobrovsky. The chance wasted. Nothing to do now but sit on the bench, hands clutched, knees still bouncing, but it’s nervous now, not a beat. Nothing to do but – along with everyone else in the arena – watch and wait. Patrick pulls in a breath and tries to imagine the frustration as smoke in his lungs, something he can push out, a long blue lung full. He opens his eyes. He looks down the bench. He looks out at the crowd, everyone so fucking still you could hear a pin drop, so quiet you can hear the creak of a skate on the ice. And then, like everyone else, he turns his eyes to the waiting, circling figure at the blue line. 

 

 

That night, lying next to him in the dark, Cally says, “TJ, man. TJ.” Followed by a breathy, disbelieving sigh. 

“Yeah, I know.” Patrick can still the hear the crowd, and in the shadows that hide the ceiling, he can still see his teammates in the instant the shot went in, jumping and twisting, electrified delight. A moment so fantastic it didn’t feel real, as unlikely as a comic book plot twist or dream logic. Some kind of preordained destiny bullshit. 

Patrick listens to the sounds of Cally shifting, watches him settle on his back, arms folded under his head. “That kid was something else tonight.” Cally’s lips curve, smiling and shaking his head. 

Patrick grins. As far as he knows, Cally’s got maybe a year on TJ, if that. But TJ’s goofy in that Peter Pan sort of way. Tonight he’d played like it was all for fun, nothing on the line but bragging rights. He’d shrugged and smiled on the ice, and pulled exactly the same face under the camera lights after, all eternal, boyish charm. Cally shakes his head again. “I’ll be damned.” 

There’s an undertone of pride in Cally’s voice that Patrick recognizes. His pleased smile the one an older brother saves for the exceptional acts of the younger. Patrick falls asleep, grin still in place, and in the limbo of not quite awake and not quite lost to sleep, he thinks about his sisters, bent over their homework at the kitchen table. Golden hair and honey-colored wood. When they were younger, Patrick used to sketch elaborate drawings for them to color in, rewards for their achievements. Patrick drew dragons and the Sabres logo, epic battle scenes, and on request – endless horses. He remembers the look of concentration they wore, filling in with color his carefully inked lines. Their pleased expression when they held the finished product up for his approval. 

That was all before hockey got serious, of course. Later, there had been no time for time for drawing. No time for anything but the ice, one practice after the next, the constant pursuit of perfection. 

A dull throb presses in at Patrick’s temples; he rubs the coverlet between his fingers, rubs his face into the pillow. Behind his eyelids he sees the game, and the ice stretches endless, time on the clock running like a fine fall of sand. He remembers the sudden hush every time TJ skated out, ten thousand breathes all held at once. 

They roll Slovenia. And on Monday, they rest. 

 

 

On Tuesday they watch the Czech Republic and Slovakia go at it. They’re going to have to play one of them tomorrow. Patrick chews his lip, too nervous about a jinx to cheer for either side. He props his feet on the metal stadium chair in front of him, arms tucked in tight to his chest. Cally and Kessel press in close on either side, both of them leaning forward, silent and serious, their eyes tracking the action on the ice. Patrick hooks his hands down inside his sleeves against the chill. He gets stuck watching number 81 for the Slovaks. He’s big, but quick, quick, quick. Craggy face and crooked nose, an artist’s depiction of everything a hockey player should look like. The Czechs go up 3-0 in the first period, but you wouldn’t know it from the way 81 – Hossa – is playing. Late in the second he barrels across the blue line, slams one in to put the Slovaks on the board. 

He does it again in the third. Patrick grins watching him, cheering despite himself for this one-man wrecking crew. Hossa’s goal pulls the Slovaks up to 4-2. Off the next faceoff, the puck ricochets up the ice, and Patrick can see Hossa on the bench, screaming, pulling oxygen into his lungs with great, wet gasps. Red-faced and leaning over the boards, pushing at the air with gloved hands like he could move the players on the ice, and still yelling – yelling words that Patrick can’t really hear and probably aren’t in English, but that Patrick can understand anyway. Desperate, ferocious begging. One eye on the clock and one eye on your brothers, willing success with the whole force of your being. 

The Slovaks rally to 4-3. 

Patrick watches their goaltender, closely enough to see his muscles tense before he sprints for the bench. Patrick’s hands clench on a phantom stick, knuckles white. 

It isn’t enough. The Czechs score. The game ends 5-3. Too bad for Slovakia, Patrick thinks. And too bad for that one guy. Number 81. 

 

 

Team USA walks back to the Village together, a blue-clad pack, murmuring mostly about the Czech defense, hands shoved deep in pockets against the gathering chill. Just ahead of him, Cally’s bumping shoulders against Ryan McDonagh, a skip in his step as he mimes a slashing motion, re-enacting the last penalty of the game. “That shit, that shit is exactly what you don’t do, got it Mickey D?” Cally reaches out to give the back of McDonagh’s neck a light shake. McDonagh laughs, ducks his head. Cally and McDonagh click together. Cally always seeming to know where McDonagh’s outlet passes are gonna go, and this comfortable, simple camaraderie. A team within a team. 

Watching them, something scratches at the corner of his mind, a sound like pages flipping in the breeze. And something tells him that he should know more, should _see_ more – 

Cally glances back at him. “Why so serious, Kaner?” 

Patrick blinks for a second, unaware he’d looked particularly solemn or particularly any way at all. “I – I guess I kinda wanted Slovakia to win.” 

Cally makes a face. “How come?” 

Patrick thinks about it. But he comes up with nothing more than the image of watching 81 score, of watching him stand at the bench and scream for his team, playing over and over again like a reel in his head. “I don’t know.” That feeling that he should have a better answer, like there is a better answer, bubbles up, but in the end he can only shrug. “I just did.” 

“Well then, they shoulda scored more goals than the other team.” Cally gives McDonagh another little shake. “That’s the key to this game, you know.” 

McDonagh rolls his eyes. “Real pro tip right there, Cally. Solid insight, that.” 

Cally laughs. 

 

 

Friday – the gold disc of the sun is already slipping towards the horizon when they walk to Bolshoy. If Patrick were painting it, it would be all broad smears of color, one bleeding into the next. It would make for a very dramatic march. 

Their march is not very dramatic. For one, it’s not very long. And two, they’re just a few steps behind the Canadians, which is a touch awkward. But they all left from the same place. They’re all going to the same venue. It’d be weird if they _weren’t_ in eyeshot. Patrick watches their backs, all clad in matching red and white, rising and falling together like some giant superorganism. Part of him wants to hurry his steps and fall in with them, just to see how long it would take someone to notice. Flip hats. Maybe flick ears. 

Patrick would probably get yelled at for that, though. No. Patrick would definitely get yelled at for that, if not by Parise or Cally, then definitely by someone on the Canadian squad. Polite, nodding acknowledgment in the cafeteria is one thing. But they’re supposed to maintain a silent, respectful distance. Which is a shame really, the Canadians play good hockey. They might be fun to talk to. He frowns, eyes still following the red and white group in front of him. 

“Patrick, Patrick, Patrick.” Parise slings an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t worry. We’re going to beat them. We’re going to win.” Brilliant, pearly smile. 

There’s a tight, anxious pull in Patrick’s chest. He ignores it, and nods at his Captain. Of course they are. There’s no time for doubt. No time for anything but certainty. They’re going to win. 

But the last seconds of the game prove Parise wrong, and slip away without a miracle, without a goal. They don’t win. 

Patrick can still feel the weight of the puck on his stick, the catch of his skate in the ice – and he just needs seconds back. Just a handful of seconds back, just one more chance, and he could make it count. He’d be ready. He’d be perfect. His fingers flex on the stick, sweat on his back gone cold, throat swelled tight and eyes like fire. 

And everything’s even sharper when he pulls his helmet off: the cold air against his temples, the sound of the crowd. He stands at center ice. He is behind Kessel and in front of Cally and the line stretches out forever and ever. He recites, on loop: 

_Good game good game good game good game._

One quick, clammy handclasp after the next – the faces in front of him starting to blur, growing indistinct – 

Until number 16 grabs him. One arm pulls him in for an awkward hug; Patrick’s taken by surprise, off-balance when it happens, and suddenly 16 is so close – close enough to for Patrick to smell sweat, and to feel the heat radiating off 16’s skin. Patrick gets a glimpse of cheeks still painted red, hair plastered flat, and wide brown eyes. He’s close enough for his breath to warm Patrick’s cheek. For a second, Patrick’s heart catches thick and full up in his throat. 

Time skips and jumps, and the line’s already moving on; moment over before it began. 

 

 

They ghost around the arena on Saturday, an afterimage of a team. In his vision, the net squeezes down to pinhole- size, Rask looming like a wall. The game crumbles in his hands, a paper castle left out in the rain. 

And on Sunday, they have to watch Canada win it all. 


	2. 2

Up above, way up above, there’s a bird circling. Broad wings, primary feathers reaching out like fingers, backlit black against a blue sky. 

Patrick’s eyes water. He looks away. 

The Village stretches out, row after row of scrubbed white facades, all decked in flags. Patrick rubs his hands across the rubber grip of the handlebars. He glances behind him, Cally is just coming down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He pulls his own bike off the rack. “You ready, roomie?” 

Patrick nods. Today is February 15th. Today they play Russia. He rolls his shoulders, a stretch and a pop and the sun feels good, warm across his back. 

 

 

TJ swings wide right, curls in left, and dekes. The puck hangs one impossible second on the lip of his blade before it shoots across the ice and goes in. 

The bench rises all at once, hands in the air, shouting. Kessel bouncing and grabbing Patrick’s shoulder. To his left, Backes already throwing himself over the boards. 

And Patrick is – just a half second behind. A blip before he’s on his feet, like the noise and the image don’t match up, lips moving out of sync from their soundtrack. 

But then he’s out there, and TJ is bright and shining in front of him. Someone’s hand grips his shoulder pads and shakes him, someone’s arm is around him, someone’s hand resting on the top of his head. Every spotlight in the world pointed at them, and Patrick is light, light, light, on fire from within. They won. They’re going to win. They’re going to win everything. 

 

 

But winning is like threading a needle: a narrow path, with all the possibility of failure a cavernous drop on either side. Like balancing on a skate blade: one wrong shift and you fall. The feeling of lightness ebbs over the next two days. Even in the game against Slovenia, an easy win, Patrick has to fight off a creeping sense of dread. _Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die._

Outside, Patrick can see the wind picking up, flags from a dozen different countries flipping in the breeze, and he can hear it whispering as it runs between the buildings, _you have to practice, Patrick. Practice. Do it over, Patrick. Get it right. Focus, Patrick, you have to focus._

Patrick gets up, shuts the window. 

“Paulie found a karaoke place in town.” 

Patrick jumps. Cally’s eyebrows go up, and he shuts the door with exaggerated care. Patrick frowns. _Focus, Patrick. Focus._ “So what? Does he want a prize or something?” 

Cally throws a sharp look at him. “Well, I didn’t know about it. And you didn’t know about it. Anyway, lighten up, sourpuss. Now that he’s found it, you know that’s where he’s dragging all of us tonight.” 

Patrick hums, noncommittal. 

“Seriously?” 

“I’m tired, man.” Patrick is tired. So tired he aches, exhaustion a heavy solid thing behind his eyes. So tired Cally had had to shake him from sleep to watch the Slovakia-Czech game. “Okay, okay,” Patrick had groaned. “I’m awake. I’m right behind you.” And then there’s this creeping sense of dread; he’s all shot through with the need to dig his heels in, throw his hands out and hold the future at bay. “We have to play Canada on Friday.” 

“That’s two days from now.” Cally says it like it’s forever. “You’re not gonna pass up the opportunity to see Kessel sing, I know you’re not. 

Cally looks so hopeful. And it’s easy enough to fix this. Patrick laughs. “No, I guess not.” He rolls upright. “Let’s go.” 

 

 

Paulie leads them down one of Sochi’s darker, more twisting streets, throwing bright anticipatory grins over his shoulder at them every few steps. He stops in front of a long set of stairs that lead down, below street level. A hand-painted sign swinging gently on its hinges: _Speranza’s._

Patrick lifts an eyebrow at the entryway, tall and arched. 

Paulie grins at him. “Trust me. This is going to be fun.” 

The inside is red and plush, buzzing with music and loud conversation. His team sprawls into a booth around him, long legs stretched out in front of them, but Patrick curls in, fingers tight around his glass, slippery in his hand, and empty too fast. Alcohol or no, he can’t set aside the creeping prickle climbing the back of his neck. Spotlights search the room, the light dim then bright and hard to adjust to. He puts two beers down quick, layering alcohol over the bite of uncertainty that keeps nagging at the edges of his thoughts. 

Parise looks at him, and Patrick grins – wide. But it feels frozen, stretched tight across his face. After a moment, Parise grins back, lifts his glass. 

And if you play hockey long enough – and Patrick has been playing for Team USA since he can remember – you come to realize there actually is a point at which a hangover is better for your game than gnawing, creeping anxiety. And if you’re drinking – really drinking – then you have to commit. 

Patrick commits, with the grace and dexterity of a man familiar with the need to forget. 

At the bar he orders a shot. A man sways next to him, eyes glazed and his body emanating a damp, fermenting sort of heat. His eyes are fixed on the bartender, who has her tits pushed up high, scrap of a shirt showing the dive of cleavage. The man coughs wetly, flips a bill onto the bar. She drums blood-red nails in front of him, waiting until a second bill joins the first. His eyes never venture above her neck. 

When she swipes the money and turns away, Patrick says, “you might have better luck with a little – ” he holds two fingers up to his eyes and then at the man’s. “ – eye contact. You know?” 

The man’s gaze drifts over slow, delayed. “You must be from out of town,” he says. And grins. Crooked teeth. Grayish lips. 

Patrick turns away. Downs his shot and returns to the table as quickly as possible with another pitcher, and as far as anybody else knows, it’s still round 2\. 

The bar lights pulse rhythmic and hypnotic. On stage, some Russian guy is milking the last strains of _Piano Man_ for all they’re worth, microphone up close to his lips and swaying toward the audience. The track skips on his last crescendo, and the man laughs, golden moment interrupted. 

A long, lithe woman climbs the stage next. She has an athlete’s body, and an American flag draped over her shoulders. She looms unsteadily onstage, squinting into the lights, her lips still stained a candied red from whatever she was drinking. The sounds of picked guitar strings pump out of the speakers, a tinny, metallic edge to the sound. The woman slurs the words of the opening lines, but gives up singing half-way through the first verse. She starts a one-woman, twirling dance, fluttering and lost. She comes back in at the end, a beat too late: _and a Jay Z song was on. And a Jay Z song was on._

She throws her hands up for the chorus and falls, crumples to the stage. The crowd screams its approval, a vicious, wild roar. All at once the house lights flicker and die, and in the moment before his eyes adjust, Patrick’s not sure if he’s in the dark at all, or if his eyes are just closed. In the artificial twilight, the woman pushes herself up, on hands and knees, feeling across the stage for the microphone, hands reaching and searching. Patrick’s stomach twists. Her friends drag her offstage. 

 

 

The dread lingers, a sickly-sweet haze. Patrick pushes himself in practice, all-out sprints up the ice, snaps the puck hard at Miller, like maybe the dread is a relic of not feeling ready that he can push himself through. At night, Patrick makes himself lie down, like maybe the dread is exhaustion that will lift like a fog. 

Instead he dreams. He dreams of wearing fire-engine red jerseys. He dreams of black feathers. He dreams he is chasing flashing, silver fish in a stream, and when he catches one, he lifts it triumphant above his head. 

 

 

By Friday, a feverish cold clings to him, crawls spider-like across his skin, and the air hangs thick and stagnant in his lungs. They form a long line, marching down the tunnel to the ice. Patrick fights the urge to bolt, to hobble in skate-clad feet to the exit. To run. 

He hits the gate, he hits the ice, he ducks his head, and he thinks _we’re going to lose._

He half-grabs Parise. “Zach – ”A warning on the tip of his tongue. 

Parise frowns at him. “Too much pressure, Kaner? You nervous?” His face softens. “Relax. We got this. Just play your game.” 

Like Patrick is having a crisis of confidence. Which, he is – isn’t he? There’s no other reason for this deadly certainty. No other reason to feel quite so cold up inside. 

In the second, Brown, Cally, and Backes hop the boards, and across the ice, Patrick can see Benn driving. Right here, he thinks. Right, exactly, _here._

Benn puts the puck in the net. 

The game closes 1-0, the last impossible seconds ticking away at half-speed. And then they’re done. Patrick’s lungs feel raw, and he’s 10,000 leagues underwater, pressure heavy on all sides. He would rather be anywhere – _anywhere –_ else than lining up to shake all these hands, look at all these flushed faces and their barely suppressed grins. 

The line slips forward, Patrick keeps his eyes on his skates, but he’s still counting, still keeping track in his head. _Not this one. Not this one. Not this one._

This one. 

Patrick looks up. Helmet mark red and vivid on his forehead. Flushed face. Wide brown eyes. Number 16 pulls him into a hug, and for a second they’re so close – so close he can see the faint trace of a scar, a place he missed shaving, the uncertain twist of Toews’ lips. 

And Patrick knew. He knew that was going to happen. 

 

 

They lose again the next day. Patrick ran off anger the whole game, and after that was nothing. Nothing left to give. He doesn’t watch Canada win on Sunday, but Cally tells him the goal scorers. “Toews,” he says. “And Crosby and Kunitz.” 

Patrick goes to bed early. If he stretches out, he can push his toes beyond the edge of the bed, comforter scratchy and thin under his fingers. He closes his eyes. 


	3. 3

Patrick wakes to strong sunlight across his face; the angle feels later than it should. The room’s empty. Patrick throws on his clothes quick. 

Outside, Cally is waiting, leaning up against the bike rack. “There you are. You ready?” 

Patrick shivers, cold even in the sunlight; the sun seems to swell for a second, hangs vivid and sedentary in the sky. He hesitates, blinking against the sudden brightness. “I had a dream,” he says. “That Canada won gold.” 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Canada’s dreaming that too.” Cally shrugs. “But today we worry about Russia, okay?” 

Cally’s watching him, his expression momentarily darkened by the flickering shadow of a bird, crossing the face of the sun. “Yeah, okay.” Patrick says. “I’m ready.” 

 

 

They win against Russia. They win against Slovenia, a molasses pour of a game. Eons pass in between Patrick’s shifts, and on the bench he’s exhausted, so exhausted it hurts to move. Behind him, he can hear Bylsma and Laviolette, but even Lavvy’s fading in and out, voice subsumed by a quavering, dissonant hum that waxes and wanes in his ears. And just beneath the sweat and the antiseptic and the cold smell of the ice, Patrick keeps catching a trace of rot, the smell of something sickly sweet clinging in his nostrils. 

Cally’s waiting for him in their room after the game, and he says, “Paulie found a karaoke place in town.” 

Patrick rubs his eyes, chasing at a dull throb. He can hear scratching, like rats in the walls. “Karaoke?” 

“Yeah. Come on, you know you want to. I know you’re not going to pass up the opportunity to hear Phil Kessel sing.” 

“Cally,” Patrick says, and stops. 

Cally blinks back at him, waiting. 

“No. Yeah.” Patrick swallows. “I’m in. Just let me – ” He gestures over at the bathroom. 

Patrick shuts the door after him. It feels thin, particle-board light. The lock is a joke that a hard shove would take care of. He turns the bolt anyway, and stares into the bathroom mirror. His face looks yellow under the fluorescent lights. Circles like bruises under his eyes. “They’re playing my song,” Patrick tells his reflection. “I’m gonna be okay.” 

 

 

They walk downtown all in a pack, laughter billowing out like fog from their lips and hanging in the cold air. Paulie takes them down one street and then another. They turn a corner, and Patrick is suddenly face-to-face with an enormous replica of the Hollywood sign. Brown stops short, gives it a double take, and then laughs, short and sharp. He walks over to it, runs his hand over one of the letters and laughs again when it sways under his touch. “Not much to it.” He looks over his shoulder at them, grinning wide enough to show off the gap between his teeth. 

“Come, _on_ , Brownie – I’ve had just about enough of sobriety,” Paulie yells at him. He leads them over to a tall, arched entrance, stairs leading down, and a sign that creaks softly in the breeze: _Speranza’s._

“See if they have those fried potato things,” Cally says once they’re inside, crammed against Patrick’s side. 

“And the meat dumpling things,” Parise adds. “See if they have those.” 

Paulie rolls his eyes at them and waves down the waiter. 

They order plates of both, pointing at the steaming piles of food on other tables and holding up two fingers, three. The waiter brings over a bottle of red wine first, holds it out for Parise to inspect, one hand supporting its neck, bottle in his extended arms like an offering. Parise nods, mock serious expression on his face, but a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. Paulie leans back in the booth, wide grin on his face. He puts an arm around Patrick. “Drink it all in, Patty. You never know when you’ll back.” 

Across the table, the waiter pops the cork and pours for Parise. When Parise smiles at him, his teeth are stained red. 

 

 

On Tuesday, Patrick wakes from his nap late and has to rush to the Slovakia-Czech game. He slides into his seat just in time for puck drop, still wiping sleep from his eyes. He elbows Cally. “You were gonna let me miss the game?” 

Cally frowns at him. “You said you were up. You said you’d be right behind us.” 

“Bullshit,” Patrick says. “I was asleep.” 

Cally squints. “Well you fucking talk in your sleep then, because you said you were up.” 

“No – ” Patrick starts to say, and then he stops. _No, that was last time._

He looks down at the ice. Number 81 – Hossa – swings over the boards, jumping into Slovakia’s building rush. He makes good decisions. He skates where Patrick thinks he is going to skate. Patrick drags his eyes over Hossa’s face, and there’s a nagging certainty that he should recognize him. His face hovers like a lost word at the tip of the tongue in Patrick’s memory. 

Patrick’s thoughts skip, staticky, white noise like the sound of tearing paper in his ears that builds into an aching hum. 

“The Czechs or Slovakia?” Cally asks. “Loser buys dinner.” 

“The Czechs,” Patrick mumbles, not looking over. “5-3 counting the empty-netter.” 

 

 

“Good fucking call on the score.” Cally throws himself down on his bed. 

Patrick sits on his own bed, rubs his forehead. “I had a feeling.” 

“I thought Slovakia kept it close, though. You know? They were in it the whole game.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees, stretching out. “It was close.” 

“Patrick?” 

Patrick snaps awake. He blinks at Cally. 

Cally rolls his eyes. “Don’t mind me. Just talking to myself, I guess.” 

 

 

Against Canada, in the second, the play clocks ticks over to 10:00, and hangs. Patrick watches the motionless numerals and counts seconds: _one two three four_. 

He could stay here forever, between one tick of the clock and next, an eternal lull, and then the weight on his shoulders lifts, the hum in his head is silenced, and oxygen rushes into his lungs like a sunbeam breaking through clouds. Patrick puts his hand on Cally’s arm, arresting his motion just as Cally stands. “I need to take this shift.” 

“What?” Cally throws him a look like he’s crazy. 

“I need to take this shift,” Patrick repeats. And because it’s hockey, he throws himself over the boards, too fast for anyone to stop him, and he goes. 

 

 

There’s a certain brutal satisfaction in shaking Canada’s hands after. Red and white jerseys stained with sweat, their eyes pinned toward the middle distance. 

Patrick’s team is jubilant around him; their joy a buffeting wave, and Patrick could drink in this energy forever. Could feast on this happiness like a great beast gorging on flesh. The feeling races and sings under his skin. 

He imagines he can see his father in the stands, and behind him, his mother, and his sisters, banging delicate fists against the glass, tiny faces smiling and jubilant – for him, for him in this one, perfect moment. After wins there would be cake set on the dining room table, and Patrick can see the bright light of their faces, and hear the treble of their voices, ringing out, one, great pandering chorus – 

He can see streamers hung up, hands clasped in joy, and the bouquet of flowers at the center of the table, at once opening, and in peak bloom, and wilting into sweet decay. 

On Sunday, they play Sweden. Sweden wins. 


	4. 4

Patrick wakes up almost too stiff to move, still exhausted even though the light slanting in says it’s the middle of afternoon, that he slept late. He rubs at his gritty eyes; he can remember the weight of the silver medal hanging around his neck, flowers in his hand: a victory and a loss. He stretches, rolls his shoulders and sits up. The room is empty, and the medal which was on the dresser last night is gone. 

Patrick frowns. He pulls on shorts and runs outside. 

Cally looks him up and down. “What the fuck, Kaner? Why aren’t you dressed?” 

Patrick is clutched by the eerie perfect feeling of coming to a sudden stop when you didn’t know you were in motion. His pulse is ocean-roar loud in his ears; he can hear a high-pitched whine – realizes he has been hearing a this whine since rising from bed, maybe since before then, maybe always – and he blinks at Cally, then he looks up, shades his eyes. 

And there, way up above, is that _fucking_ bird. He looks back down at Cally. “What did we do before this?” 

Cally just frowns at him. 

A growing twist of desperation in his chest, and he has to keep steady, keep his voice calm. “Ryan. What did we do yesterday?” 

“We… played Slovakia?” Deep, confused lines furrowing Cally’s brow. 

“No. Before that. What did we do before that?” 

Cally shakes his head, looking concerned. “Don’t crack now, man. This is it. This is the endgame. We’re playing Russia, we need you.” 

Patrick stares at him. Cally’s clothes flutter a little in the breeze; his face seems pale, but open and unlined. “I gotta go get dressed,” Patrick says. 

Inside, he sits on the edge of the bed, hands at his temples. Yesterday, they played Sweden in the gold medal game and lost; the memory is vivid, crystal-clear. Before that they beat Canada. Before that the Czech Republic – Slovenia – Russia – and before that – 

Before that, nothing. Just an anxious, nagging ache, an empty, whistling waste. The cold shiver of fumbling for a light switch in a darkened room, and in the blackness the sensation of something moving. Patrick stands and slams his hand down against the dresser. The surface splinters, breaks. 

Patrick’s breath catches. 

He pokes at the crumbling remnants with a growing unease. The wood is all rotted through. He wipes his hand across the break, brings it up to his lips and blows away a puff of fungal dust. He closes his eyes, presses the heels of his palms into his face until lights flash behind his eyelids. 

Or none of that happened. Or happened only in dreams. He swallows. He pulls on a shirt. He will dress. He will ride a bike to the Bolshoy with Cally. They will play Russia, and they will win _(had won)_. They’ll play Slovenia and they’ll win _(had won)_ – that one too. Then they’ll play Canada, and – 

The stereo whisper in his head stutters, stops. Patrick looks at himself in the mirror, blue USA t-shirt paper-stiff and hanging. The longer he stares, the more the white letters seem to twist and unravel into unfamiliar lines. He searches his own face, searches for some hint of madness. But sometimes it doesn’t matter. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but put your head down. Keep skating. 

 

 

He walks with his team toward Speranza’s with a heavy feeling of inevitability, the very earth tilted down, the angle steeping all the time. He barely glances at the Hollywood sign as they pass, eyes fixed on the the looming pillars that guard the entrance. For a second, they’re enormous, arching tusks that meet overhead, still bloody at the root from where they were cut free of their host, and bloody at the tip with the revenge they took before they fell. But he blinks, and then they’re just plaster. White and plaster and growing steadily more wet from the rain. 

A host meets them at the door. “Welcome back, welcome back” he says, gesturing towards the booth in the back. 

Parise frowns. “We haven’t been here before.” 

His eyes slit. “My mistake, sir.” 

Patrick sits at the edge of the booth, refusing to be hemmed in. He doesn’t know why until he sees a girl draped in an American flag take the stage – and then he’s up, cutting across the room. 

He catches her. Just before she falls, one arm around her slight waist. Vaguely, he can hear catcalls from the boys, but he holds her close. There’s something syrupy on her breath; she shivers against him. Patrick turns out to face the audience, and even though he would have sworn he didn’t have time for new music in at least the last six months, Patrick knows all the words. 

 

 

Against Canada, Bylsma says, “Good anticipation, Kaner. Really good anticipation.” 

Manic laughter threatens to seep out from between Patrick’s pressed lips, but he just nods, rolls his shoulders and tucks his head. He keeps the puck to himself on the ice, because after all, he knows, with a bubbling increasing certainty, where it’s going to go – each bounce and slide and pass. He pots one on his next shift, deking left because he knows Price is going to go right. 

The handshake line is a long stream of dejected, Canadian red. And Patrick might be fucking insane, but at least he’s a winner. He presses his palm to the these strangers’, one after the next after the next. He searches their faces, but they mostly look down, look away. Patrick counts them off in his head, first then second then third then fourth then – 

Sixteen – Toews – meets his eyes, gaze angry not defeated, and – 

And Patrick is watching the far off outline of a bird, of a _hawk_ , move across the face of the sun – 

A movie-reel flicker of images unspools for him: red jerseys trimmed with black and white, an Indian head crest, and the roar of crowds, red neon lights racing the perimeter of the arena, and music – loud, blaring, perfect music. Patrick grabs Toews’ sleeve and Jonny – 

A hundred thousand drills together. A million times Patrick’s shoulder knocked into his on the bench. Jonny in the locker room laughing and goofy after wins and on the ice, yelling red-faced up in Patrick’s space, Jonny fucking with his cap, and Jonny smiling at him, and Jonny looking at him – right here, in line, in a Team Canada jersey. 

Jonny looks back at him, frowning at him like he’s crazy. He tugs his sleeve free of Patrick’s hands. The line slides on. 

 

 

Patrick mouths the names of the Blackhawks’ roster, a mantra against forgetting, but now that they’ve awakened, the memories are impossible to press down. Even with eyes closed, he sees Jonny’s face, and Jonny’s sweater – Jonny’s chest capstoned with that perfect, embroidered ‘C’. 

He’s not hard to find: the Canadian dorm is decked in as many flags as all the others. Patrick slips in as Marleau is leaving. He moves quick and keeps his hat brim pulled low. He crosses the foyer, ducking into the hall, and when he looks up, he finds himself face to face with Jeff Carter. Patrick says, “I’m looking for Tazer.” 

Carter blinks at him. 

“Tazer?” Patrick says again. “Jonathan Toews?” He holds up a hand. “About yay high? Short brown hair?” 

“Toews is upstairs,” Carter says finally, with a deeply skeptical look. “Second floor.” He watches Patrick climb the stairs. 

Jonny is reading – of course Jonny is reading – stretched out on his bed, the door to his room standing open. “Tazer.” 

“Kane?” Jonny sits up and stares. “Patrick Kane? What the fuck are you doing here? How did you even get in here?” 

Patrick takes a step towards him. He should definitely, for sure, lay this out clearly and rationally and slowly and sanely. “We play together.” The dam gives, in one hot rush, all his blood up near the surface, and all his panic edging into his voice. “You and me. Jonny, we play together. On a team in Chicago, and you have to remember that, _you have to –_ ” 

Jonny’s frowning hard, a vague sense of alarm settling across his face. “You’re an American.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “But before – ” 

“I play for Team Canada.” 

Patrick grabs the front of his shirt, out of patience, two fists balling in the fabric. “ _Before that_ , Jonny. What about before that?” Jonny just stars, face nightmare blank, so quiet Patrick can hear the scratching of rats in the walls. 

Patrick lets go, sick, panicky bile coming up his throat. “Okay, okay.” He pauses, hand pressed to his mouth. “Where’s Sharpy? Sharpy’s your roommate, right? Or Duncs?” 

“How the fuck do you – oh, I suppose they played on our team too?” His voice rings sarcastic and sharp. To anybody else, he’d sound almost amused, but Patrick knows that voice, knows it means Jonny’s pissed. And he’s edging for the door, slow, like he thinks Patrick won’t notice. 

“Yes,” Patrick says, since it’s the truth. 

“You’re crazy.” 

“I’m not,” Patrick says. But it sounds weak, unsure. 

“You’re fucking crazy,” Jonny says again. He shakes his head. “You fucking beat us, okay? Now leave me the fuck alone.” 

 

 

On Sunday, they lose to Sweden. They celebrate anyway, and Patrick doesn’t remember passing out. 


	5. 5

“You’re fucking crazy. Leave me the fuck alone.” 


	6. 6

“You’re fucking crazy. Leave me the fuck alone.” 


	7. 7

This go-round he gets punched. After that, he leaves Jonny alone. Concentrates on hockey. He knows the games. Now here, now there. Now high, now low. Now Kessel, then Hossa, then Carter, then Toews. 

This time, Patrick gets the hockey exactly right. The hockey is perfect – and that was so important, so utterly, tremendously important, except now Patrick can’t remember why. 

The podium bounces under his weight, shakes. He stands with flowers in hand, the air smells like lilies. The crowd’s roar comes in waves and gasps and eddies, but their faces are blurred and indistinct. Patrick can’t pick anyone out of the crowd. He stretches a smile across his face just in case – but Patrick is just waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting for it to be over. 

He lays in bed, gold medal still on. He holds his eyes open in the dark. He can hear Cally breathing next to him. The catch and hiss of breath regular and even, and in between – Patrick strains against the dark – 

In between Cally’s breaths the sound of something scratching. 

He wraps his fingers tighter around the medal, edges digging into his palm. A drumbeat of adrenaline sings under his skin. _Don’t fall asleep_ , he tells himself. _Don’t fall asleep and time has to pass._ The sun has to rise. Medal warm under his fingers – he did this much – he did everything. It can’t be dark forever, the sun has to rise. 

Patrick blinks. 


	8. 8

Late afternoon light, warm across his face. Patrick squeezes his eyes shut; he can feel tears leaking out. He lays perfectly still, from between chapped lips, mutters a half-remembered prayer. But when he sits up, no medal hangs from his neck, no flowers lie faded next to the bed, and the light that slants in is the syrupy, gold of afternoon. No daybreak, no morning. Patrick pulls on clothes, robotic. He steps outside and looks up. 

Right on cue, a hawk sweeps across the empty sky. 

Patrick looks down, vision still blurred by exhaustion and eyes still adjusting to the light. Cally is smiling at him, loose and careless. “Come on, roomie. Let’s go to work.” 

Patrick can feel the muscles of his throat tight when he swallows. He can feel the thump of his heart in his chest, pounding so hard and so fast it could break open inside him. For a moment, he could easily wrap his hands around Ryan Callahan’s throat. He swallows again. “Yeah, fuck that,” Patrick says. He grabs his bike and takes off, Callahan shouting after him the whole way. 

Patrick ditches his Team USA jacket. He buys a cap, pulls the brim down low. He spends the day watching curling. 

 

 

The stunt gets him benched for the Slovenia game. He watches tight-lipped from the press box. In a second, Brown is going to take the ice, and two strides in, he’s going to trip and fall. 

In about thirty seconds, Faulk is going to bank a pass up the boards to Kessel. 

Then Kessel’s going to score. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe whatever ripple Patrick has set into effect by sitting out this game will mean no hat trick for Phil. Or at least not here, a goal at this specific moment. Or maybe it will mean no victory for the USA at all. Maybe Slovenia will win. Maybe Slovenia will win it all. 

Patrick’s nails dig into the flesh of his palms. He bites his lip. He waits. 

 

 

Patrick parties with the Austrians. He roams what passes for downtown Sochi until the small hours, and shows up unshowered and red-eyed to practice. Bylsma’s jaw works, but he says, “We need you for this game, Patrick.” 

Patrick says, “Of course.” 

This time, they lose. It’s hard to get worked up about it, but his teammates want to drink. Sometimes Patrick fights them on where to go, this time he just rolls with it, even though by now, this bar in particular makes him twitchy. He pauses at the arched entrance: gaping jaws, jutting cobblestones for teeth. Inside, the lights pulse red, giving everything a lurid, amniotic glow. The air hangs hazy with smoke and the music throbs. The corners are unrelieved darkness, faces and bodies slipping in and out of sight. He leans over, mouth close to Cally’s ear, so Cally can hear him over the noise. “I’ll bet you $5000 the next song is _Party in the USA_.” 

Cally twists to look at him, alcohol on his breath. “You’re a strange guy, Kane.” 

Patrick leans back against the booth, but keeps his gaze straight on Cally, his tone perfectly even. “You’re Ryan Callahan and you play for the New York Rangers.” 

“I can’t hear you,” Cally half-shouts. Then he shrugs. 

Patrick slips out when he can – after everyone’s eyes are glazed, but before he has to watch anyone fall. 

Sometimes Canada goes out to celebrate their win over the USA, but mostly, Patrick’s found, they head back to their dorms. 

Mostly Patrick watches the lights flick on then off in Jonny’s room from the safe distance of the street. A lone figure in the lamplight, hanging around, lost as a spurned lover, a dog gone astray. But sometimes Patrick takes risks – willing to chance the blow that will be Jonny’s unyielding unrecognition for the faint, slim hope that just won’t die. And on those nights, on those times, Patrick slips inside. 

He tracks down Toews in his room – which is always on the second floor, always the third door on the right. It’s sometimes closed, and sometimes open, but Jonny is always alone inside. “Listen.” Patrick leans into the doorway and jams a foot against the frame as soon as it cracks open. “We’ve been playing the same games over and over again. Sometimes you win, sometimes I win, sometimes Sweden wins, but it isn’t supposed to be like this. We play on the same team. You, Jonathan Toews, play for a team called the Chicago Blackhawks.” 

Jonny leans back, blinking rapidly. “You’re Patrick Kane. You’re one of the Americans.” 

“Yes,” he says, impatient to be past this part. “But – ” 

“Have you been drinking?” 

“No. Yes. That’s not the point.” Patrick rubs his face. The same fucking walls. “You have to remember, Jonny. You have to.” There has to be something. “We play on the same team. You’re my captain.” 

Jonny’s head tilts, lips parted, stuck, and for a second, just a second, it’s like the tumblers are turning, a light clicking on. Jonny shakes his head. “Sid’s the captain. You’re crazy.” 

He starts to close the door, but Patrick throws his weight against it. “You _know_ me. If you didn’t know me, why do you hug me in the handshake line? Why do you always hug me?” In a hundred variations of the USA-Canada game, Jonny’s hugged him after every USA loss. 

Jonny’s just half a beat from clarity, Patrick can tell. He can see him hanging, pushing through reeds to get to clear water. “I – ” Jonny’s jaw works. “You just looked – sad. And I don’t _always_ hug you. I hugged you once.” He shuffles and looks down. “It wasn’t even really a hug.” 

“Jonny – listen to me.” Patrick doesn’t even recognize his own voice, high and thin, and he can’t –it’s not even worth it. There’s no way to cut through the scrabbling, scratching noise that’s all around them, and in all the dozens of ways that he’s pushed, Jonny’s never once given in. He’s so tired, so tired he aches with it, and It should be impossible to be just inches from another human being and be this alone. Patrick swallows. “Just – sometimes Sweden wins, so you need to listen to me. The gold medal game is going to go like this – ” But he can already see Jonny’s eyes glazing over as he talks. Already see the skepticism drop into place. 

When Patrick pauses for breath, Jonny gives a short, sharp shake of his head. “Why should I believe you?” 

Years and years pass before Patrick can answer. “You’re on my team.” 

 

 

Jonny finds him after, and that’s new. He peels away from the raucous Canadian crowd when he spots Patrick in the village. His collar is still damp with champagne, and his cheeks are flushed. He lists a little in front of Patrick, but his eyes are serious. “All those things you said were gonna happen, happened.” He steadies himself with one hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “All those things came true.” 

Patrick looks up at him. “We keep playing the same games. We’re supposed to be in Chicago. We’re supposed to be home.” 

Jonny’s eyes are on Patrick’s face, gaze so focused like it could drag the truth right out of him. His hand’s still on Patrick’s shoulder, and everything slows to a crawl, everything stops, because Patrick is being heard. Patrick is being believed. 

“Tazer!” 

Jonny glances back behind him. 

“What the fuck are you doing, Tazer? Get over here.” 

Jonny lets go. 

 

 


	9. 9

Patrick runs outside early enough to pitch a rock as high and as hard as he can at that _motherfucking_ bird. It falls to earth, a mile short. 

Cally’s gonna be downstairs in two minutes. In front of the next dorm down, a crowd of laughing Germans emerge and eddy before drifting down the street. A street sweeper works his way toward Patrick, everyone in their own perfect, oblivious loop. 

Patrick is the only human being in the whole world. He drops, hands resting on knees, sun beating hot on the back of his neck. 

The closest he’s gotten to anyone is Jonny. If he can crack anyone, it’s gonna be Jonny. 

 

 

Patrick plays Russia on autopilot. 6-2. “Sorry, TJ.” Patrick slaps his shoulder as he heads off the ice. 

TJ frowns, bewildered. “Why?” 

Patrick’s got the shortest path to the Canada dorm memorized, knows if you hang out on the front step it won’t be long before you get let in, knows that if he pulls his cap down low, no one will question him. He catches up to Jonny in his room, and today’s Jonny is in a foul mood. 

“Chicago,” Patrick says. “The United Center. Millennium Park. Michigan Ave. The Cut.” 

Jonny makes a move to slam the door on Patrick’s foot. 

Patrick jams his shoulder into it. “Madhouse on Madison. The Indian Head. Fuck – _Tommyhawk_.” 

Jonny rolls his eyes and shoves past him into the hallway instead. Patrick sets after him. 

“I’m gonna call security,” Jonny warns. 

Patrick holds up two fingers. “ _Two_ Stanley Cups. Two parades. One cherry-picker incident. How can you not remember this?” 

Jonny walks faster, cutting into the laundry room where neatly numbered and folded stacks of clothing are waiting. “You,” he says, “are fucking _nuts.”_

Jonny’s face twists, the tight, angry lines of it still perfectly familiar, even if his eyes show no gleam of recognition. If their positions were reversed, Jonny would have figured this out by now. Jonny would have fixed it. And Patrick can’t – he’s crumbling, he’s really crumbling, he’s going to fucking lose it this time, he’s going to give up, and Jonny – Jonny won’t even give a shit. Jonny won’t care or even know why he should care. Jonny’s just standing there, face set in an expression of perfectly blank disdain, arms clutched around his laundry, just the white in his knuckles betraying the level of his frustration, and – 

Patrick stops. 

He takes one long breath, looks at Jonny’s hands. Another breath. Jonny’s eyebrows draw together, expression growing impatient. 

Patrick swallows. “Then why’d you grab the wrong laundry?” 

Jonny glances down and then back up. “What are you talking about?” 

Patrick points, ignoring the growing scratching chorus in his ears, and the throb in his head, pulse racing under his skin. “Why’d you grab the wrong stuff?” 

Jonny frowns. “I didn’t.” His voice is insistent, offended. 

“You did.” Patrick’s whole head is ringing, hair standing up on the back of his neck, his heart a solid lump in his throat. “You wear sixteen here. You wear _sixteen_ , but you grabbed nineteen.” 

Jonny rolls his eyes and looks up at the ceiling as if imploring the heavens. “Jesus fucking Christ, Kaner, so I made a mistake. Force of – ” Jonny cuts off, stares down at the pile of fabric in his hands. Patrick can see his fingers flex. His throat work. “I just – ” He stops, and he’s quiet for what feels like hours, feels endless in the tight, airless room. Jonny looks up and blinks. “We went to the aquarium together.” 

“Yes!” Patrick nearly jumps, nearly sobs. “Yes.” And if of all the fucking things they’ve done together, _that_ is what Jonny wants to remember, then Patrick will take it. “Yes – we went to the aquarium – and you said you liked the jellyfish best – ” 

“You said that was stupid.” Jonny shakes his head. “You said that was a stupid thing to like best.” 

“Well, I still think I’m right, but I don’t really feel like arguing the point now.” Jonny’s face changes, loses that blank, horrible look, but now it’s worse – _worse_ because he looks lost. “Jonny,” Patrick says. “You have to trust me. We’re on a team. We play together.” Patrick reaches out, taps the left side of Jonny’s chest. “You’re my captain.” 

Jonny nods absently. “How do we get home?” 

Patrick’s stomach sinks, awash in cold, and _Jonny_ is supposed to be the captain. _Jonny_ is supposed to know. But here he is looking back at Patrick, lost and uncertain. “I think – ” Patrick hesitates, casting about for something, some direction no matter how random. “We’re in Russia. Maybe it’s some sort of Russian magic. Maybe Russia needs to win.” 

“Win gold?” 

“Yeah.” Patrick swallows, tries to sound certain. “Maybe that’s it.” 

Jonny frowns. A slow, hesitant nod. “How are you going to do that?” 

 

 

It takes him until Wednesday to track down Ovechkin. 

Ovechkin laughs at him. Laughs when Patrick starts talking about the Finnish defense. Narrows his eyes when Patrick keeps talking. At first he looks skeptical. And then he looks angry. 

He stays quiet after Patrick’s words run out, eyes pinned on Patrick’s face. Patrick bounces a fist off the table, steaming paper cups of coffee sent teetering. “I’m telling you, that’s how it’s gonna go. You have to listen to me.” 

Ovechkin leans forward in his seat. They’re in chairs in front of the fireplace, mock cozy, but all the heat seems to be sucked straight up into the ceiling, lost in shadow. Patrick shivers. Ovechkin says, “we don’t need your help to win.” He tips his head toward the door. “You have your own game today to prepare for. You should go.” 

 

 

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” Patrick says. “He laughed.” 

Jonny frowns at this, hesitates. “But did he listen?” 

“I said I _don’t know._ ” Patrick rubs a hand roughly across his face. “I have to go. The team’s gonna wonder where I am.” 

“Patrick, wait.” 

Patrick halts in the doorway. Behind him Jonny twists his hands, still frowning. He reaches for Patrick, and there’s a buzzing chorus in Patrick’s head when he takes a loose grip on Patrick’s wrist. “I’ll see you after the game?” 

“Yeah.” Jonny’s eyes are dark. Lashes lowered. “Sure.” 

Jonny’s hand drops away, and Patrick takes a step, but – “Jonny, wait. Listen, early in the second Tavares is going to take a shift against Kulda. Tell him – tell him to keep his head up in the corner.” 

Jonny studies his face. “You realize, if we both win today we have to play each other.” His lips press together, tight. 

Patrick’s throat closes, desert-parched. “We are both going to win,” he says, as certain of it as anything he’s ever been. 

 

 

Russia plays Finland. Russia plays Finland, and Patrick sits in the stands, the seat underneath him unsteady enough to be the prow of a boat, rising and falling, a beam lifting and balancing under him. And even in the stagnant air of the arena, Patrick can feel the winds shifting. 

Russia wins. 

 

 

Canada wins twice. Once against Latvia and once against the USA. The USA takes their loss like they usually do: hollow-eyed and broken, and Patrick , almost-but-not-quite too numb to care, carries that ache high in his chest and low in the pit of his stomach. One second they’re on the ice and the next they’re on the streets, and then at the bar. It gets dark so quick – too quick, faster than it should – faster like time’s speeding up, the earth sling-shotting around the sun. Patrick’s heart races in his chest, struggling to keep up. 

Patrick slips away from his own team, their long faces and their empty glasses, and winds his way across the rain-splattered Village streets. The wind howls and whispers, creeps in under his jacket, a sudden gust of rain down the back of his neck. Patrick skirts around the pool of lamplight and Jonny is waiting for him by the door, pale face a beacon in the dark. 

He takes Patrick up to his room, but he won’t sit down. He can’t keep still. “How am I supposed to ask them?” Jonny says. “How am I supposed to tell them to lose?” 

Patrick feels the silence that stretches out after that down in his bones, feels it for years. 

Sharpy breaks the silence – and even if the door was unlocked, it still feels like a seal broken. His hair is wet, color high in his cheeks. He’s grinning when he comes in, looks quick from Jonny to Patrick and back again, one eyebrow climbing. “Tazer? You wanna explain?” 

It’s one thing for Patrick to keep reciting the same verses over and over again; it’s quite another to hear his words echoed in Jonny’s voice, first hesitant, then stronger. _Chicago. Home. Team._

Sharpy throws his head back and laughs. “Good one, JT. How’d you get the American to play along?” He smiles, winsome and handsome, but his eyes strangely flat. 

Patrick clears his throat, dropping the words into the silence. “You have a daughter,” he says, slow. “Her name is – ” 

“Maddy,” Sharpy says. The silence stretches like a waste, and Sharpy, who looks suddenly shaky drops onto the bed like a stone. “Her name is Maddy.” His eyes, when he lifts them, fall on Patrick. “I need to go home.” 

Now Patrick has two followers. He can feel the weight on his shoulders double. 

Jonny drops down next to Sharp, who regards him blankly. “How long – ” 

“You can’t think about that,” Jonny says. “Not now. The thing is, we need Russia to win.” He stops, looks up to check with Patrick. “Which means we need to lose.” 

Sharpy shakes his head, hand over his mouth. “We’re never gonna convince Sid.” 

“No,” Jonny agrees. “We need people we know – really know. Like Duncs, maybe.” 

“Duncs.” Sharpy agrees. “Maybe Carter?” 

Anxiety crawls around under Patrick’s skin. “Is that going to be enough?” 

Jonny shakes his head. “I don’t know.” 

 

 

“I thought maybe I knew you,” Duncan Keith says, when they bring him in. His eyes travel up and down Patrick. “I just thought – I thought maybe you seemed familiar.” 

“You do know me,” Patrick says. “You do know me, and if any of us are gonna get home, you have to listen to me.” 

 

 

Jeff Carter just frowns at them. “I don’t understand,” he says. He looks over at Sharp, uncertain. 

“You know me – you knew me in Philadelphia,” Sharpy says, but Carter just shakes his head. “I don’t – ” 

Sharpy sighs. “What about Mike Richards? Do you remember a guy named Mike Richards?” 

“I think I’d remember,” Carter says, “if I’d ever been to Philadelphia. And I don’t know anybody named Richards.” 

 

 

Three people. Patrick worries at the skin of his knuckle. Three people convinced and the maybe the rest is up to fate. Beneath him, he can see the ice – its freshly buffered surface stretching out endless, radiating cold. The last notes of the anthem ring in his ears. Patrick closes his eyes. 

Last night, Jonny had said, “I’ll walk you back to your dorm.” Last night, he had shoved his hands down deep in his pockets, pulled his hood down against the frozen rain, and walked close next to Patrick the whole way through deserted streets, their breath puffing out white in front of them. He stopped in the shadow of USA’s house and looked at Patrick, and suddenly there was no façade at all. Jonny’s face was brilliant white, picked out by lamplight, eyes inhumanly dark, and wide, and looking at Patrick. “Are you sure?” He said. “Are you really sure?” 

“Jonny.” Patrick had reached up, put his hands on Jonny’s shoulders, fabric damp under his fingers and rain running down his face. Jonny leaned into him, close enough for Patrick to feel the humid warmth radiating off him. Patrick had to believe. Had to believe enough to make Jonny believe, enough to make everyone believe, enough to make it true. He moved his hands up to Jonny’s face, first cold and pale, but the skin had flushed quickly, as if Patrick’s touch brought the blood to the surface. Patrick could feel the tight jumping of tiny muscles, the trip of his pulse. “Jonny.” 

Jonny kissed him just at the edge where the pool of lamplight faded and gave way to dark. Jonny leaned in and curled his hand around the nape of Patrick’s neck. His mouth was a soft press of heat, shocking in the blistering cold. And how perfectly unexpected. How many times had they had to live this week to get to this particular twist, this moment, cold rain running down the side of Patrick’s face, and the touch of Jonny’s skin, and the quiet sounds of him breathing. But why not? Why not this? Patrick pressed up into it, chasing the sensation of heat, and the world – ripples. Shifts 

Jonny pulled back, lips still parted, eyes still wide. He cupped Patrick’s face again, pushed back a wet strand of Patrick’s hair. 

“We’ll get home,” Patrick said. 

Jonny nodded, his fingers still a light touch at Patrick’s temple. “I believe you.” 

 

 

Patrick presses himself to the glass to watch Canada warm up. The ice is flooded with red and white; on the far side Russia flashing the occasional blue and gold. Patrick closes his eyes and breathes; the sensation of time reeling and speeding is back, as if when they played the anthems, they would sound chipmunk-fast, as though the game itself would pass in seconds. Mostly he watches Jonny, who in this world, in this week, in this iteration, had kissed him. Who knows how many times the wheel spun to produce that outcome? Who know how many times it would have to round before happening again? 

In front of him, Jonny’s stride stretches, stretches, stretches, endless – and between the valve-thumps of his heart, Patrick smiles. 

He has three. Three players wouldn’t be enough to win. But that doesn’t mean three won’t be enough to lose. 

Someone taps on the other side of the glass. Patrick starts and refocuses, and it’s Jeff Carter, looming tall in front of him. He frowns down at Patrick, raises his voice just enough to be heard. “Hey this guy – Mike Richards. Does he have a dog?” 

Patrick hesitates, thrown. The crowd behind him is loud; the players rushing just beyond Carter form a blur of red. “Does he – I don’t know.” 

Carter runs a gloved hand across his head. “I keep dreaming,” he says, and Patrick almost can’t hear, his ears strain over the noise. “That I’m on a beach, with a guy and a dog.” 

“A beach. _Yes_. You play in LA.” Patrick’s practically shouting the words across the glass. “You play in LA, and if you lose tonight, we might all get to go home.” 

Carter pushes away from the wall, frowning. He starts to skate and stops again. Shakes himself and steps into his stride, motions re-set into their rhythm, and joins the circling players in their end of the rink. 

Maybe, just maybe, they have four. 

 

 

The noise when the clock runs out, when Russia wins gold on home ice, is incredible. Dragon-clad shoulders bowed and shaking and the tears running down Ovechkin’s face. Worth it, worth it, worth it – maybe it was worth it, Patrick thinks, to have lived long enough to see this. 

 

 

Patrick stands outside the Canada dorm, just off to the side of the porch, just beyond the spill of the floodlight. Hovering in the dark like something sinister. Only maybe half of Team Canada makes it back to the dorms, but Jonny is one of them. Patrick thinks, for a moment, that Jonny won’t recognize him – in the dark, with his jacket pulled up against the damp and the chill, but Jonny breaks away from the pack, waves them off, and comes to stand just in front him. 

Jonny’s face is pale. So white it’s almost blue, and still, perfectly still; the surface of a well before the bucket is dropped. 

A tremor moves across Jonny’s face. He grabs Patrick’s shoulder, hard enough that the ache radiates down his arm, sharp and sudden enough that Patrick’s mouth opens, a perfect startled O. 

Jonny drags him inside, hand keeping tight on his shoulder. There are bodies in the hall but Jonny pulls them past too fast to make out faces. He pulls Patrick into his room, and holds him with his back to the door, hand flat against Patrick’s chest. Patrick opens his mouth to speak – 

“Is it enough,” Jonny says, speaking over him. “Is it enough for you that we lost? When do we know? When do we know if we’re done?” 

Patrick swallows back a rush of bile. Jonny’s eyes are wild, and he almost can’t – can’t speak, can’t breathe, hope too precious, too delicate. “Tomorrow. If the sun comes up tomorrow and it’s morning, then it’s really, really morning – ” 

Jonny’s mouth crashes against Patrick’s still-moving lips. Patrick breathes in, thud of his heart loud in the startled quiet. Jonny’s fingertips graze his face. He pulls back, chased by the wet, intimate sounds of his lips letting go and him swallowing, still holding Patrick’s face, still just millimeters away. “Tell me again,” Jonny says. Patrick can feel the rise and fall of his chest. “Tell me again.” 

“Chicago,” Patrick breathes, almost inaudible, right up against Jonny’s mouth. “Your first hat trick, against Pittsburgh. I was there. The time we went to the Navy Pier and got snow cones – ” 

“Your mouth was red.” 

“Yeah.” Patrick turns his face up. Jonny’s lip is rubbing up against his again, Jonny’s nose against his cheek. And this burn in his chest is like a fire being slowly unbanked. Each pull of oxygen bringing the risk of ignition. “Yeah. So was yours.” 

Jonny’s hands won’t stop moving: Patrick’s face, his chin, his shoulders. Jonny’s eyes fluttering like pages in a breeze, a sheaf of drawings come undone. Patrick leans into the touch. 

Jonny’s skin warms under his hands, more with each press and slide and shift, Patrick keeps his eyes open. Studies each line of Jonny’s face in the fading half-light and keeps his hands flush against the solidness of Jonny’s body, each motion, each action a careful warding against the encroaching dark. 

When Jonny stops moving against him, when their breathing slows, Jonny loops an arm around him, tucks his face into Patrick’s neck. 

“Don’t fall asleep,” Patrick says. “Jonny, don’t fall asleep.” 

Jonny just makes a small noise, turns his face further into Patrick’s skin. 

Patrick cradles the back of his head, murmurs the words straight into Jonny’s ear. “Don’t fall asleep. And if the sun comes up, if it’s morning, then all this will be over. We’ll go home.” 


	10. 10

Patrick wakes up, eyes blinking open to strong afternoon sunlight across his face. He is in his own bed. Alone. 

Patrick curls in on himself, draws his knees up to his chest. The tears burn. Fiery hot, escaping from behind lids squeezed shut. Patrick gasps for air. 

He knows, knows without looking, that outside Cally will be waiting. Outside, they’ll be headed off to play the Russians. Outside, there will have been no medal ceremony, no flowers. All banners still unhung, all possible futures still unspun. Patrick chokes, turns his face into the sheets. Outside, afternoon sunlight will pour over the Village, and a hawk will wheel through the air, and none of it – _none of it_ – will matter. 

“Patrick. Patrick get up.” It’s Cally, come looking for him; he’s running late. “You have to get up, Patrick, it’s time to play hockey.” 

“I don’t want to,” Patrick says, hiding his face again in the blue-patterned sheets of his childhood bed. 

His mother sighs from the doorway. “Patty, you have to get up. We’re going to be late.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes and sits up. The sun is glinting off the trophies lined up on the shelf, edge of a poster on his wall caught and shifting in the breeze. He frowns, blinks – 

“Kaner,” Cally says, more heat behind it this time. “C’mon. The Russians await.” 

Patrick pushes back the covers, standing and crossing the room, heart thudding and he’s right up in Cally’s face. Close enough to count the lashes, to smell the toothpaste on his breath, to read his scars. 

Cally lifts his eyebrows, an expectant look. “Russia? Six ‘clock puck drop? This ringing any bells? This sound at all familiar?” 

And then he smiles. 

The quickest flicker, the twitch of a lip and the expression is swallowed. Cally is straight-faced again and waiting. 

Patrick’s abruptly aware of a whine, high-pitched, so constant it was background noise before, but now it’s right up at the front of Patrick’s consciousness, loud and incessant, bending up and quavering at the end, achingly dissonant. Patrick falls back a step. Patrick looks for the door. 

Cally’s hand whips out snake-like and snags him by the shirt; his eyes narrow. “You have to play, Patrick. The team needs you.” 

Patrick glances down, at Cally’s hand fisted in the fabric. He breathes in, answers slow and deliberate. “I have to get dressed.” 

Cally releases him. “Of course.” He smiles. 

 

 

In the second, Carlson shatters one of the panes of glass with a slap shot, and the boards themselves tremble and rock. When play re-starts, Patrick lines up at the hash marks, he skates around Voynov – same place he always is – his blade slicing the skin of the ice – the mark never fades. 

Against Slovenia, he can’t even dredge up the energy to imagine their faces. Patrick cups his hands and breathes into them. He skates against faceless opponents, vague blue shadows over the ice. 

Against Canada, Bylsma says, “Good anticipation, Kaner. Really good anticipation.” 

Patrick pulls his glove off to rub his forehead. He turns and looks up at Bylsma. His face a familiar shape, standing out against the unfinished blur of the crowd behind him. Patrick’s watching him – watching his slow, serious nod, watching as he taps his folded notes against his chin. He looks down again at Patrick. 

Then Bylsma winks. 

Patrick’s breath catches, gut twisting up sudden and sharp and cold. He looks back out at the ice – overexposed, too bright to see clearly. There’s a creeping, rising trapped feeling setting in, as though the boards themselves were rising up to tower overhead, to lock him in. He can see the wood shifting, the spaces around him closing. He kicks out, sudden and panicked, and the boards – the wood itself – gives way, crumbling and rotten. 

“Patrick,” Bylsma says, shaking his head. “Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. What are we going to do with you?” He grins suddenly. “Get out there. Get us another one. I bet you can.” 

 

 

Patrick tears out of the arena after the game. Slams the door so hard on his way out that the whole building seems to shake, threaten to fall. He sprints the distance back the Village, jogs up the stairs, and pushes the door to Jonny’s room open wide without bothering to knock. 

“You kissed me,” he says. “Right here. In this room. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.” 

Jonny blinks up at him, face blank. “Patrick Kane? What are you doing here? What are you talking about?” 

Patrick stops. Focuses very hard on drawing breath, on pulling air into his lungs and forcing it out. Jonny’s watching him, dark eyes starting to narrow. 

Patrick backs out of the room, turns and flees the house. He winds his way away from the Village, turning at each juncture away from maintained greenery and whitewashed buildings and winding his way toward town, driven by nothing but a panicked creature’s need to move. When the road splits, he picks the half less lit, and even in the tricky light, the street is vaguely familiar: on his right a bar mocked up with a fake Hollywood sign, on his left something resembling the Eiffel tower. He stops, breathing hard, and in front of him looms a gaping, arched doorway, stairs leading down, and the soft red light of a sign that reads _Speranza’s_. 

Patrick spins on his heel, ducking between pedestrians, loud revelers, and workers with their jackets turned up against the drizzle, all headed against him, all driving him back. 

The pavement is slick underfoot, and he turns down another street, crossing at random. The rain strings his face between awnings, and he pushes back wet hair. He turns another corner and when he looks up he sees – the same gaping entrance, black rail, and the stairs leading down. Red glow and a pulsing throb from below. 

Patrick turns and very deliberately walks in the other direction. He walks straight. The rain picks up, turning into icy needles. Patrick wipes his eyes, trips over the uneven lip of the sidewalk, goes sprawling to the pavement, a sharp bite of pain in his ankle. He pushes himself up, braces his hand against the wall – and it slips – this portion of the wall is a long curve that twists up, becomes the narrowing arch of a high doorway overhead. The stone is slick with rain, and warm to the touch. The sign buzzes into the night, an insistent neon glow. _Speranza’s._

The sides of the doorway meet and cross far above his head, glistening white like tusks or bones. He looks around, at the dark gaping exit of each street mouth and if he were in the air, if he could see, he knows – suddenly _knows –_ that this town is like a wheel, each road a spoke, and no matter how many turns he makes he’s going to end up here. 

A flicker of lightning highlights his answer, and the thunder gives chase. 

Patrick steadies himself, looks down the darkened stairwell. The whine in his head swells and grates and subsides, and underneath is the sound of mad scratching. Something slithering, or mice cross-hatching in the walls. 

He descends. 

The door flings wide to noise and light and wet, steamy heat that rolls over him, the smell of sweat and cigarettes and dank corners, and it’s so loud – so loud it all blends together, a white noise throb. Patrick works his way between tables, a woman’s head thrown back in laughter, face twisted, laughing so hard she looks like she’s sobbing; her wine glass slips and there’s black-red liquid running between her fingers, running down her arm. 

The man across from her screams his laughter. 

Onstage dancers vaguely ape the music, but their eyes are blank, faces as white as their go-go boot heels, repetitive, hypnotic sway, dead gaze. Patrick presses on. 

Back, in the corner, is a clear peel of a laugher. Kesler waves at him. “Hey, Patty! It’s about time!” They laugh at this and pull him down, hands on his shoulders, tugging him into the booth. 

Cally grins and raises his glass. “We’re doing so good, Patrick! We’re doing so awesome, you have to catch up!” 

Kesler puts an arm around him, presses a glass into his hand. “Drink up, Patty, drink up!” 

Patrick looks down at the glass, hesitates. 

Kesler laughs. “C’mon, Patrick – a feast to celebrate Canada’s loss!” He raises his glass. 

“Do you remember,” Patrick shouts over the music, his face pushed close to Kesler’s ear. “Do you remember before? Do you remember Vancouver? Do you remember that we’ve done all this before?” Throat raw, voice giving out at the end. 

Kesler laughs again, tightens his arm around Patrick. “No,” he shouts back. “No, but I remember punching Brownie in the face once. It was very satisfying.” He throws his head back and crows. 

Patrick starts to pull away from his grasp, but he can feel Kesler’s fingers sliding across the skin of his neck, fingernails raking the skin. Patrick twists and lunges away. His foot catches under the table, and his body twists and falls, a sharp lance of pain darting his thoughts again. Eye level with the carpet, Patrick can see it’s spotted with red, littered with the glitter of broken glass, and in the darkness under the table – something moves. 

Patrick throws himself backwards, scrambling on hands and knees back and away. 

“You have to do better than that, Patrick!” 

He looks back to see his teammates laughing, faces twisted and leering down at him. Patrick pushes himself upright, stumbles away from the table, away from them, away from the suddenly over-loud swell of noise from the crowd, and the music – two tracks, three tracks, four tracks all at once, same song but out of sync, a jumble of rhythm, words too distorted to understand. Patrick turns and runs blindly toward the back, ducking around the first corner he comes through, past the kitchens with their blast of heat and the sound of knives sharpening, past the rancid stink of the bathrooms, and the hallway keeps going, growing darker and darker around him. He’s half-hobbling, hand against the wall for balance, and his fingers catch, damp plaster coming away under his nails. 

Patrick slows, breathing hard. The pain in his leg is fading, and he’s suddenly aware of how dark it is. The hall stretches on and on, lit by bare hanging bulbs that are four strides apart. Then six. 

Patrick looks over his shoulder. Then he keeps going. 

He walks and the space between lights keeps growing, until the last bulb is a fading echo while the next still a pinprick of light in the distance. He starts walking faster, eyes on the bobbing, shifting light ahead of him. The darkness is now a murky twilight, shadows shifting, shrinking and clawing forward as the bulb moves pendulum-like in an unseen breeze. And under his hand, the walls aren’t blank plaster anymore, they’re papered, and the paper – 

Patrick can’t quite make it out. He pushes on, and he’s growing closer to the bulb ahead of him, yellow-orange light pushing back the dark. Patrick squints and strains. The walls are covered in drawings. Pen and ink scratchings. And there’s the dinosaur he drew for Erica. There are the crossed swords of the Sabres’ logo. A dozen horses for his sisters. The Stanley Cup. A million hockey players on the ice, their arms raised in triumph, ink blot of a puck sitting in a cross-hatched net. 

The end of the hallway is lost in darkness. He stands under the last bulb. When he runs his hands over the drawings, his fingers come away stained black, covered in the acrid smell of ink. And all around him, in the darkness, the furious sound of scratching – of a pen nib, moving across the page. 

Further down there are more sketches. And here is a drawing of a podium. Here a hawk. Here a glass of wine, tipping, spilling. Here a dancer falling. And here the sketched depiction of the entrance to a long hall, it’s end lost in darkness. 

Patrick touches the paper again, pulling at a loose page. The edge of the world flutters, curling up. And there, down in the corner, hidden in the shadows on the edge of the sodium-yellow light, Patrick can read his signature. 

_P. Kane_

Patrick’s heart trips, full up in his throat – he tears the page off the wall, only to reveal another under it. A child’s scribble of a stick figured, overbalanced, out of proportion to a boxy house, a globular tree. 

The paper comes away freely under his fingers, but there’s no base, nothing under it but more paper layers, each more yellowed and more crumbled by age, and Patrick falls back. Stands breathless under the swaying light. 

Around him, there is no sound at all. 

Patrick’s mind gives a little pop, a filament dying, and – he shakes his head. Above him, the bulb swings, and the shadows sway and scurry, and form claws that start to reach – 

Patrick jumps, a furious backpedal, and he swats at the bulb dangling above him. It shatters under his hand. A bright slice of pain and sudden dark and the hissing shards land in the pile of pages at his feet – 

And catch. 

A small ember, and a spark, and then fire is racing, a white-hot line up the wall, catching, spreading, a bloom of sudden light and heat – and it jumps – 

A liquid puddle of fire blossoms on the ceiling, and surrounded by all this light, Patrick finally smells smoke. 

The explosion is so bright Patrick can see it through his eyelids all fire-red and he opens his eyes to flames leaping around him, walls going up like paper kindling. The heat presses in – a physical thing. Patrick takes one step back. Then two. 

Then he runs. 

His feet slide out from under him, boards crumbling beneath his feet. Smoke blackens the air, hangs thick and choking – Patrick runs toward air, towards the faint trace of a breeze, and suddenly he emerges out onto the street, driving rain plasters his hair, ice driving needle-like against burned skin. Patrick falls to his knees and gasps. But under his palms, the stones crumble, melting into dust like ancient bones. Behind him, a crash roars from the husk of the club, and the fire streaks higher, impervious to the rain. 

Patrick pushes himself up again, runs as far and as fast as he can, collapsing to his knees only when the pavement runs out, when the town gives way to the slopes of a hill, he stops finally, dropping into the mud at the base of an enormous tree. The branches reach and twist, black against the painted-orange sky. Patrick gasps, heading hanging, mud and rain on his face, the taste of ash still in his throat, arms shaking with the effort of holding him up. 

Jonny drops down to the ground beside him. “Hey, Pat,” he says. 

Patrick turns his face up. Jonny is watching the fire, his expression one of mild disapproval. 

Sides still heaving, Patrick kneels in the mud, twists himself around so he can rest his back against the tree’s truck, watch the crumbling structures give way to flame. 

“I burned it down.” He bites out the words between pulls of air. 

“Yeah, I can see that.” Jonny shakes his head. “You’re so fucking dramatic, Kaner.” 

Patrick keeps breathing. His mouth is dry, soot smeared across his face. He holds up a hand, looks at his blistered fingers. “It’s not ever going to be perfect. I’m not ever going to get everything right.” 

“No.” Jonny looks him up and down. “I suppose you’re not.” He sounds resigned. Not upset. “But did you do enough?” 

Patrick looks out at the skyline, still lit by firelight. “I don’t know. How do I know?” 

Jonny shrugs. “I guess we’ll find out.” He crosses his arms against his chest, turns and faces east, waiting. 

Patrick leans his head against the bark of the tree. He sits with Jonny and looks east, waits, hoping for dawn. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> There is sometimes never really a good time to post something. 
> 
> Right? 
> 
> On the other hand, sometimes you just gotta know when to have fun with it.  
> Let’s just say this one grew out of a blender smash of horror, romanticism, and _party in the usa_.  
>  Let me thank you again for all your past and future help and encouragement; you make all the difference in the world to me. 
> 
> Onwards and upwards, my friends.  
> Not horrified? duly horrified? find me on the internet [here](https://twitter.com/ionthesparrow12) and [here](http://ionthesparrow.dreamwidth.org/).


End file.
